American Masters

- I think it was around '82 when I started working with Mr.

Hope, and he started only, every school break, every Christmas special, every birthday show, every tour, he would call me his good luck charm.

And it was such a sweet thing because I just looked up to him for, you know, I would watch him as a little kid in the "Road" pictures and just always loved him.

And then to be able to have that kind of day in and day out, the pace of it, the rehearsal, that kind of tutelage from the man himself, I learned a lot just by watching.

He would take jokes away from me if I got a really big laugh, and he would say, "You're too young for that.

"I'm giving it to Marie Osmond."

And I'd say, "But Bob, I made everybody laugh.

"Look, they're all laughing."

And he said, "Too young, too young.

"It's bellow the belt for a kid."

And I thought, "Okay, here's what I'm gonna do."

So I just didn't, I tanked all the rehearsals.

I just would say the lines and just say them and look like I was looking for my marks and kind of do the, you know, sort of pretend that I wasn't really on my game or I hadn't found the funny yet.

And then when we would do it live, I would just bring it, and you could just see in his eyes.

And, you know, he'd say, "All right, okay, all right."

I said, "Bob, I learned from the best."

I said, "You can't get mad at me.

"I'm your straight man.

"You gotta know that, "but you gotta let me be what you taught me."

And so I just, I learned a lot about the power in just a look and how the timing, if you're a split second too late or a split second too early, you're just not on the funny, the funniest of the funny.

You know, and it really, it helped that all of his shows were sort of packed with, you know, stars and just heroes of mine.

And, I mean, in what other world would I have gotten to work with Lucille Ball, you know, I mean, Mickey Rooney, you know, all these, so many people just by being on his shows.

Synonymous with Bob Hope when I was growing up was USO and entertaining the troops.

You know, those pictures of Marilyn Monroe, you know, in a sea of servicemen.

And so I think the association was very strong for my generation.

And I think he was the model for that.

You know, he was really the first one that he hooked into the USO shows.

I mean, they had, you know, singers and their USO tour singers and things like that, but no one had ever had like a headliner.

And he was the first one to do that.

So he then, I think, opened up that channel and allowed entertainers and people to have a forum and a platform on which to stand to say, "We thank you.

"Here's a few brief moments of a respite "where you can laugh."

And I think that that was infectious.

With regards to performing live with him, not the television shows, but the live performance for the troops, it was as if he came off the ground a little bit.

You know, the minute he, and he would become energized, and complete different type of an energy.

And he wanted every single member of the troop, like every single person to feel that he was doing the show just for them.

And he would go immediately in any city or any of the USO shows that we did, whether we were in America or in Beirut or anywhere, he would get all the local jargon of that particular, you know, camp whatever.

And would get, he'd learn the nicknames for the mess halls, and he'd learn the nicknames for the bar that they sneak out to when they're not supposed to.

And so he would sort of make each show slightly individual, and he loved doing this for them so that they got the feeling that he really got it and he really had a, that they mattered to him.

I was so wanting to be a part of the, you know, it's being my age and not having lived through many of the wars and being a part of any of the war effort, this was my first sort of feeling about being a part of something and trying to give back to these young faces.

You know, and I think that even though I was quite young, I felt that it was.

I had never felt a sense of duty before.

I just, you know, was a kid living in America.

You didn't, you really, it was in the 70s and 80s, you know, and so I think that it made me feel so proud to say thank you in a physical way.

So it mattered to me.

What shocked me was, I mean, you talk about an appreciative audience.

I mean, you could just go like that, and they would whoop and holler and just take their t-shirts and go, and, you know, I mean from an ego standpoint, it's incredible, you know, they're just.

And, you know, if you just do this with your leg a little and you show a little leg, it's like.

And it was this fascinating sort of the alchemy of all of that.

- [Interviewer] Can you talk about that.

- I had traditionally spent Christmas with my mom and then a day after I go to my dad's.

But to a certain extent growing up, it's about getting stuff.

Like, yeah, you go to mass or you, you know, get excited about giving your mom presents, but you really want the loot.

Like you want that stuff.

And I had not really ever felt the beauty of being unselfish until I went to the USS, we were staying on the USS Kennedy.

And the lengths that they went to, to make us feel comfortable.

They made, you know, they made Christmas stockings out of exercise sweat tube socks, and all of our names were written on them.

And there was this very homemade sort of crafty feel, and the cookies that people would send to them.

They put little cookies in all of our bunks, and they were trying to give to us, and here, it's like, here were these young faces that were possibly going to die for us and for our country, and it was, I'd never been that close to that before, and I had never felt the real pure, pure joy of really not caring about yourself and getting stuff.

You know what I mean?

Like it really, it was a shock to me that it could feel that good.

You know, I was a kid, but you're a kid, you know, you want stuff.

And it was like the look at their smiles or for them to just say thank you, you know, and tears in their eyes and not being home and them not being much older than I was.

You know, that was just an experience.

I didn't anticipate it to feel that powerful.

I though it would feel big, and I though it would feel historical to me because you're flying around in fighter jets and Fat Albert planes, and you're landing on, I mean, it's like being in an action movie for real.

And you've got flight suits, and you gotta dress up.

And, you know, I got to wear the XO's flight suit, and they were flattering on you.

But the actual, the way your heart just, I mean, we cried every day.

I cried every day.

We would land in a new spot, and we did two shows a day sometimes, you know, and I would get like, "Oh my God."

And he'd look, and he'd say, "That's why we do it.

"That's it, that's why."

And I'd be like yes, yep, yeah.

Okay, I know, I know, that's right, it's right.

You know, and you, and it didn't make me, it had nothing to do with politics.

Like I think that was what was fascinating to me too, was it was just purely about these human beings and how they appreciated just our time and telling stupid jokes.

You know, the walks in the bar, and I mean, they're like, you know, they weren't meta jokes.

They weren't you know, they weren't.

They were just dopey.

They were just entertainment and funny.

You know, that was just, it was indelible that sort of feeling to me.

He had this perfect way of breaking the fourth wall but not compromising the humor or the story.

And that was a very progressive way to do it.

You know, now it's all so in your face.

It's the kind of look to the camera, you know, and it's pointing to can you imagine that just happened?

And it's all this comment or, you know, self-awareness and commenting on yourself.

But he made a, it was a discipline, I think, for him.

So when I see him, I just think about the wigs I got to wear and the costumes I got to wear and the every, it was the most fun.

It was sketch comedy in its prime.

You know, with, and it was, I miss the theatrics of it.

So when I see him and I see his expressions, they're the same expressions that he's had since he was like a boy.

You look back and you see the same thoughts.

They're always going through his head, and those eyes, just beady little eyes.

They were so funny.

He could do more with a look or a glance than most of us could do with a monologue.

And it's in the spaces that he was just.

You're like wow, that's what it is.

That's how you do it.

He changed the trajectory of my life.

You know, he nurtured humor, and I wasn't thought of that way.

I was thought of as a face or a model or blue lagoon or something that had this kind of very different tone to it.

And he saw comedy in me, and he allowed, he asked for it, and he kept asking for it.

You know, and that was just, that was a stamp of approval that I don't know if I've ever really felt, you know?

No, I just feel lucky that he, you know, he chose me, you know?

And there was always, there were a lot of people to pick from, and he kept bringing me back, and our chemistry was something that is really hard to find.

And we really, we liked each other, you know, and I think that that was, it was really important.

It was important for me to have somebody else other than my mother who I really, really needed approval from and who thought I was funny.